|
View the H-Portugal Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in H-Portugal's August 2009 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in H-Portugal's August 2009 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the H-Portugal home page.
From: Sumit Guha <guhas@history.rutgers.edu> Dear colleagues, Soon after the English East India Company managed to finally take control of town of Bombay, the President and Council at Surat met to consider its civil administration. They recognized the diversity of its population and proposed that: "in order to preserve the Govern[ment] in constant regular method, free from that confusion which a body composed of so many nations will be subject to, it were requisite [that] [the] severall nations at pres[ent] inhabiting or hereafter to inhabit on the Island of Bombay be reduced or modelled into so many orders or tribes, & that each nation may have a Cheif (sic) or Consull of the same nation appointed over them by the Gover[nor] and Councell whose duty & office must be to represent [the] grievances w[hich] Moors of any of the s[aid] nation shall receive from the Christians or any other, also to answer for what faults any of said nation shall committ, [that] the offenders be brought to punishment & that what dutys or fines are due to the Comp[any] may be timely satisfied; his office may be also to determine all Controversys w[hich] may arise between said nation, in case the partys are so agreed, otherwise they are to be brought before the Judge of the Courts of Judicature." Surat Letter to Court 5th February 1671 in George W. Forrest _Selections from the Letters, Despatches and other State Papers preserved in the Bombay Secretariat+ - Home Series 2 volumes Bombay: Government Central Press 1887, vol. 1, p.54 As so much of the early administration continued Portuguese practice, I would like to know if there were Portuguese precedents for this effort to organize local residents into caste/community groups for administrative purposes. If yes, please also supply the source of the information and any citations of Portuguese sources that may be relevant. Many thanks, Sumit Guha Rutgers University. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ed. note: I hope some of those expert on the Portuguese empire may be able to throw some light on this query. I am curious about this issue also in that I have thought a bit about caste and community authority and recruitment in Bombay in my own work, e.g. "Caste, Community and Colonialism: Elements of Population Recruitment and Urban Rule in British Bombay, 1665-1830," _Journal of Urban History_, 1985. I seem to recall that I encountered a suggestion once that Gerald Aungier--the person to whom the Bombay policy is attributed--was aware of the arrangements of the historic port of trade on the Italian peninsula, Livorno (Leghorn), but I was unable to pursue that question myself. ******************************************************************
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
|